I’m not sure where to even begin in writing the story of Lincoln and Vivian’s birth. It will most likely not be eloquent or orderly, rather it’ll be a compilation of everything I can remember from the most intense few weeks of my life.

Most everyone knows how long Jon and I waited for a baby and everything we went through to get pregnant. It was such a long journey, and when we finally got pregnant, I thought the crazy part was over. I expected to have an uneventful pregnancy and the birth I had always imagined, coming out with a perfect little baby in the end. When we found out we were having twins, those expectations didn’t really change. Despite the predictions of so many about preterm labor, I truly believed I’d carry the twins until they were full term. At one point, maybe around week 25 or so, my doctor mentioned that he would want to induce me at 37 weeks if I hadn’t gone into labor by then. Fully believing that these babies would stay inside me even longer than that I immediately began worrying about the idea of induction and researching the validity of such an idea, so that I could intelligently convince him otherwise.

As I expected, I did have a rather uneventful pregnancy. Aside from a short scare about possibly having gestational diabetes (which I didn’t), every check-up went smoothly and every ultrasound was like a dream. Until I was 30 weeks along.

It was May 23rd, the last day of school for my students, and I was giving final exams and hugs all day. School was buzzing with the excitement of summer, and knowing I wasn’t coming back I was saying extra goodbyes, accompanied by a few tears, and finishing packing up my classroom. It was a crazy, busy, exciting and emotional day.

A couple of weeks before, my doctor had told me to schedule an ultrasound for the 23rd. He wanted it done that week and the only day ultrasounds are done in his office is Wednesday, so there was no alternative. Knowing it was my last day of school, I was stressed out because I didn’t want to miss saying bye to my kids. After finding out it would be possible to move it to the next week, I debated forever about whether to do that or not. Eventually (and with the input from Jon and my mom) I decided that seeing my babies was more important than being there for the end of my 2nd hour testing period, and I could just say goodbye to those students that morning before leaving.

So, that morning, I left school in a rush and headed to the hospital, suddenly so happy that I had kept my appointment and wondering how I could have even considered postponing it. Jon met me there and we got to see our babies and ooh and aah over how perfect they were. It was an epically smooth appointment just like all the others. As part of the ultrasound, the tech was supposed to measure my cervix at the end. After doing so, she told us that Dr. K wanted to check the measurements before we left, which had never been the procedure before. So we waited.

About 10 minutes later, Dr. K’s nurse, Trish, walked in. The moment I saw her face I knew something was not right. She told us that the measurements showed that my cervix had shortened considerably and that I was to go home immediately, get into bed and not get out until the next morning at which point they wanted me to come back so Dr. K could check me himself. I just sat there, dazed, for a few seconds. At first I was just trying to process what she had just said. Next, the fear hit. How bad off was I? Were the twins in danger of coming soon? And last, all the crucial things I still needed to do to wrap things up at school flitted through my brain – finish giving final exams, grade final exams, pack up my files and such from my classroom, input and finalize grades etc.

After a few seconds of just staring at her, I explained that it was my last day of my job and that I really needed to go back. With some persuasion on my part, she agreed that I could go back as long as I promised to stay glued to a chair and not get up and go home as soon as possible. So that’s what I did. Thus began my 2 weeks and 4 days of at-home bedrest.

This past Friday was my due date. As in the predicted day that we would meet these two

Instead we celebrated 6.5 weeks of having Linc and Viv in our lives. And we have so much to celebrate.

The way the whole having the babies thing went down was nothing like I would have planned it. I never would have wished to be on bedrest for weeks or for our precious babies to spend 17 days in the NICU, but alas, God always has a plan. And while those weeks were the most challenging of my life, they made us all stronger. They made us appreciate everything even more.

Even though I wouldn’t have planned it that way, I feel pretty darn lucky that we got an extra 6 weeks to get to know the coolest babies on the block. I hate to brag, but we got to experience 6 weeks more life with them than most people do, which is pretty awesome.

“…one of the cutest things you do is sneeze. Whenever you sneeze, your arms flail back and forth and it is the cutest thing in the whole world. I really must catch it on video because if I ever forget how funny it is I would be so sad…”

- from mama’s letter to you

What you weigh – about 6 pounds 2 ounces

What you’re eating– about 60 ml every three hours

How you’re sleeping– overall you’re a good sleeper, but the discomfort you’ve been having is making it a little harder for you. You love to sleep on mama and daddy though.

What you’re wearing – confession – most days you can be found hanging out in just your diaper. I dress you up if we’re having company, but otherwise I love to snuggle you skin to skin too much to put clothes on you during the day. When I do dress you, you are fitting just perfectly into the up to 7 lbs. size at Gap. Preemie stuff is getting to be too short for you. You are fitting just perfectly into the newborn Bum Genius cloth diaper.

What you like to do – make fish face, sleep on mama’s chest, sleep in the Moby wrap, eat, stretch

Big moments in your first month of life – being born (ha!), eating all your meals by mouth, graduating from the NICU, coming home, meeting your big sister, Olive, your first visit to Dr. Stanford and a good report, your first (for fun) outing to downtown OKC, first meetings with lots of family and friends

Nicknames – mama calls you “buddy boy.” daddy calls you “fish” or “budrow.” Not sure where some of those came from, but we’ll try to contain ourselves:)